Cancer

January 13th, 2009
What is cancer?
Do you know what cancer is? Cancer is a class of disease, which is any malignant growth or tumor inside our body that may cause us to die. A group of cells inside the person who has cancer will show uncontrolled cell division. The amount of growth of the cells will be more than usual; the cells will show invasion, in which they destroy the tissues that protect us from cancer. And also, the cells will sometimes show metastasis, which spreads to other parts of our body by the lymphatic system or blood stream. These three malignant properties of cancer are different from benign tumors, which can be controlled by our bodies and won't harm our body. Some cancers grow quickly, but some grow slowly. They can take years to become dangerous. However, normal cells usually stop dividing when they are too crowded, but cancer cells are different. First, the mutation inside our body will affect the genes that protect us from tumors to grow slower, and this will transform our normal cells into cancer cells. And like I said before, those cancer cells have unlimited cell divisions. They continue to produce and produce, and worse, they don't stick together liker normal cells do. They have lost the molecules on their surface that help normal cells to stay at the right place, and so they become detached from their neighbors, which also explains how cancer cells spread to the other parts of our body. Anyway, later, those crowded cells formed tumors, which are made up of billions of copies of the original cancer cells.


Interesting Facts
- Cancer has grades, and it depends on what the cancer cells look like. Cancer has low(1), medium(2), or high(3) grades, the more normal the cancer cells look like, the lower the grade. But the more abnormal or badly developed the cells look, the higher the grade.
- Cancer affects people at all ages, but older people will have more risk.
- On average, everyday 1500 people die because of cancer.
- Of all cancer deaths, at least 30% of people die from cigarette smoking. Cigarette smoking increases the risk of stomach cancer, kidney cancer, lung cancer...
- Most (about 8,650) of the 11,590 deaths due to skin cancer each year.

Carcinogens
Cigarette smoking and drinking alcohol can all cause cancers. Cigarette smoking can cause many kinds of cancer like lung, stomach, and kidney cancers... It increases the risk of getting cancer because of the chemicals and the smoke and tar it is added. Tar is made up of over 4000 chemicals, 60 if them cause us to get cancer. The tobacco smoke contains at least 80 different substances that cause cancer. When people started to smoke, the chemical inside will enter their lungs and it'll spread to the rest of the bodies. Nine of the ten people who smoke get lung cancer, and guess what? Lung cancer is one of all the cancers that has a big risk of dying. However, the chances of getting lung cancer can be decreased, but the only way to do this is to stop smoking.
Drinking alcohol can cause also cause many cancers too. For example, breast and liver cancers. Drinking lots of alcohol can harm the cells of our liver, and will cause a disease called cirrhosis, which make us more easily to get liver cancer. Anyway, drinking alcohol can increase the level of some hormones in our body, and if unusual high levels of the hormone called oestrogen increased, it'll also increase the possibility of getting a breast cancer. However, another reason why drinking alcohol will increase the possibility of getting cancer because it makes the tissue of a person's mouth and throat to absorb the chemicals that cause cancer in tobacco easier.




Bibliography:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer#Managementhttp://info.cancerresearchuk.org/healthyliving/smokingandtobacco/http://www.cancer.org/docroot/ped/content/ped_7_1_what_you_need_to_know_about_skin_cancer.asphttp://info.cancerresearchuk.org/healthyliving/alcohol/howdoesalcoholcausecancer/index.htmhttp://www.cancer.org/docroot/PED/content/PED_10_2x_Cigarette_Smoking.asp

Prevention of Cancer
Tobacco smoke, alcohol, food, and the environment: these things can cause cancer. Drinking, eating and how active you are and your lifestyle behaviors can affect your risk for cancer. Not to use tobacco and alcohol products can help you to prevent mouth and lung cancers. If you want to prevent cancer, you need to eat enough fruit and vegetables and avoid tobacco. Also you need to keep your body healthy. Eating a healthy diet without many foods that contain lots of salt, fats and sugar might reduce your chances of developing cancer. Then using sunscreen lotions can protect your skin from the sun.
Vitamins are also helpful to prevent cancer. When you eat some vegetable or fruits, they contain some vitamins. When you eat vitamins, you shouldn't drink alcohol or smoke. If you want to prevent cancer, keep your body healthy and keep your life balanced. The environment contains air pollutants. Air contains pollutants such as carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitric oxide, and asbestos fibers which are dangerous to your health. Breathing clean air can help you prevent cancer. These things ways that you can protect yourself from cancer. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer www.science.glencoe.com)

Treatment of Cancer

Treatments for cancer are surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. Surgery is done to remove cancer cells. If a cancer is really hard to locate, you can't do the surgery. Chemotherapy is the use of chemicals to destroy cancer cells. Radiation is kill cancer cells with X-rays. Sometimes all three treatments are combined to treat a patient's cancer. The science of immune processes called immunology has led to some new approaches for treating cancer. Cells are removed from a patient, treated, and then re-injected into a patient. Trial tests have shown some success in destroying certain types of cancer cells with this technique. (http://www.healthcastle.com/chemo.shtmlwww.science.glencoe.com)


BY: Chae Won & Jenny